Sheriff Will Alexander and his deputy Bobby respond to a bar fight that Holland Winchester has started at a local tavern.

Mrs. Winchester reports her son Holland missing and tells Will she suspects neighbor Billy Holcombe murdered him.

Will interviews Billy Holcombe in the fields and becomes convinced that Billy is hiding the truth about Holland.

Will and Bobby search the Holcombe farm, dredge the river, and find no sign of Holland's body.

Amy and Billy visit a doctor who confirms that Billy is infertile and cannot father children.

The Widow Glendower tells Amy the only way to get pregnant is to sleep with Holland Winchester.

Amy seduces Holland by bathing outdoors in full view of him, and the two begin a secret affair.

Billy shoots Holland dead after Holland grabs the barrel of Billy's shotgun and refuses to back down.

Billy uses his horse Sam to hoist Holland's body into a white oak tree and secures it with barbed wire.

Will tells Billy directly that he has gotten away with Holland's murder and leaves the Holcombe farm.

Mrs. Winchester tells Isaac that Holland Winchester was his biological father and that Billy and Amy killed him.

Billy confesses to Will that he murdered Holland and leads the group back to the farm to find the buried body.

Billy and Isaac dig up Holland's skeleton together from a burial site beneath an ash tree in the woods.

Isaac wades into the flooding river and releases Holland's bones and the Gold Star, letting the current carry them away.

Amy dives beneath the flooding river to find Billy after the current pulls him under, and both drown.

Sheriff Will Alexander's investigation into Holland Winchester's disappearance drives the main story, though he ultimately cannot find the body or force a confession. The novel then shifts backward in time to reveal why the murder happened: Billy Holcombe's infertility, Amy's desperate arrangement with the Widow Glendower, and the affair that ended in a fatal confrontation. Years later, a dying Mrs. Winchester shatters everything by revealing the truth to Isaac, and Billy finally leads the group back to the buried remains. Isaac's decision to release the bones into the river closes the legal chapter, but the river itself delivers its own judgment when both Amy and Billy drown moments later.

The headline events of Holland Winchester's murder and its reckoning.

Holland shows Will a bag of shriveled human ears kept as trophies from his service in the Korean War.

Will visits his brother Travis at the family farm and the two have a hostile, unresolved confrontation.

Will speaks with pregnant Amy at the Holcombe farm, and she denies any knowledge of Holland's whereabouts.

Billy leads Will and Bobby to the carcass of his dead plow horse Sam, swarming with buzzards, near the river.

Amy recalls pushing her little brother Matthew off a barn loft as a child, leaving him with a permanent limp.

Amy visits the Widow Glendower for the first time and receives tea and instructions intended to help her conceive.

Holland visits Amy after learning she is pregnant and tries to press his Gold Star upon the unborn baby.

Billy encounters the Widow Glendower standing at the riverbank just as he is preparing to hide Holland's body.

Billy returns to the white oak months later, retrieves Holland's skeleton, and buries the bones under an ash tree.

Mrs. Winchester gives Amy a framed photograph of Holland at Amy's baby shower; Amy burns it afterward.

Billy hallucinates Holland standing silently over him while he lies delirious with fever and pneumonia.

Isaac harvests the last round of crops from the family farm the day before Carolina Power floods the valley.

Will arrests his own brother Travis for refusing to abandon the family property during Carolina Power's forced eviction.

Will, Isaac, Amy, and Billy cross the swollen river by holding a rope before searching for Holland's remains.

Bobby drives the empty coffin out of Jocassee for the last time, resolving that he will never return.

While the investigation and murder form the spine of the novel, a rich layer of secondary events gives the story its texture and weight. Holland's display of severed ears reveals the violence lurking beneath the surface of Jocassee, and Will's fractured family relationships deepen his sense of loss throughout the case. Amy's childhood guilt and her first cautious visit to the Widow show how desperation gradually overcomes her fear of the supernatural. After the murder, the community moves forward in silence: Amy endures a baby shower hosted by the very woman who suspects her, Billy destroys the evidence hidden in the tree, and Isaac quietly inherits a farm on the edge of erasure before Carolina Power forces everyone out. Deputy Bobby closes the story by driving the last remnant of Jocassee out of the valley forever.

The significant scenes and hidden details that surround the central crime.

Will recalls losing his football scholarship to injury and the miscarriage that left Janice unable to have children.

Will has the horse carcass moved but finds the ground beneath undisturbed, confirming he cannot locate Holland's body.

Travis calls Will to report their father's heart attack, and Will shoves Travis against the hospital wall in anger.

Will sits beside his unconscious father in the hospital and apologizes, knowing there is no time left to make amends.

Billy overhears Amy tell her mother about his infertility, and the gossip quickly spreads through the Jocassee community.

Amy returns to the Widow a second time and is told she must conceive with a man other than Billy.

Amy gives the Gold Star back to Holland after realizing she is pregnant and ends the affair for good.

Amy honestly tells Billy the child she carries is not his and asks if he will raise it as his own.

Amy collapses unconscious on the Widow's porch in the snow while desperately searching for medicine to save Billy.

Amy gives Holland's Gold Star to the Widow as payment, making the Widow a keeper of the family's darkest secret.

Isaac is born and Billy looks into the baby's eyes, recognizing Holland's brown eyes as his lifelong punishment.

Isaac shows Amy the Gold Star the next morning, and Billy steps into the kitchen and confesses to the murder.

Will decides to accompany the Holcombes to find Holland's body rather than forcing them to leave the flooded valley.

Bobby arrives at the farm to find Will carrying a shivering Isaac up the hill, with Amy and Billy still missing.

Bobby opens the resurfaced coffin on the reservoir and dumps the Widow's skeleton into the lake.

Beneath the surface of the crime, every character in the novel is transformed by a single pivotal moment they cannot take back. Will's haunted memories of a lost scholarship and a lost child explain why he recognizes grief in others and why he ultimately steps aside rather than enforcing the law. Amy and Billy's turning points unfold in sequence — the overheard secret, the Widow's blunt second advice, the honest admission in the kitchen — each one closing off an easier path and binding them tighter to their fate. Isaac's discoveries happen in a rush in the novel's final hours, and his choice to release the bones represents both forgiveness and a refusal to let the past destroy what remains of his family. The river, the reservoir, and the Widow's resurfaced coffin then deliver the story's final, unanswerable verdicts.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that reshape every character.